the Fedora filters

[John Poelstra]

Karsten 'quaid' Wade said the following on 03/18/2008 04:42 PM Pacific

<<CUT>>

> ===               Educating and changing the world                  ===
> 			
>      It's not good enough to live the life.  We'll never see
>      software truly be free for all unless underlying laws and
>      values in society are addressed.

This is BIG (laws and values) and vague at the same time :) Can you be 
more specific?

>      Fedora is not here to force it's opinion on anyone else, but
>      there is value in explaining about Fedora's philosophy of
>      open source practicality.

What is "open source practicality" ?

>      By finding ways to grow the contributor and user base, we
>      make ourselves more relevant and are better able to change
>      the world.
> 
> ====                   Usability, Pragmatism                       ====
> 
>      We choose software solutions that are most usable and do the
>      best job of solving our problems, user's problems, and
>      society's problems.
> 
>      We recognize that everything is not free and open source,
>      and won't be until the world is different.  In the interests
>      of running a modern distribution, we have to rely upon
>      proprietary firmware, network hardware and storage, and
>      other resources.

I don't follow. The section starts by talking about Open Source 
*Software* and then includes *Hardware* in passing. Fedora has always 
been about FREE SOFTWARE.  Are you suggesting this be changed to include 
FREE HARDWARE too?

>      Using open source is the best pragmatic solution, but may
>      not always be an option.
> 

This doesn't make sense.  "Pragmatic" defined along the lines of 
"practical" does not make sense if the open source software solution you 
have is horrible and doesn't allow you to achieve your objective in a 
reasonable way.  It sounds like you're wanting to say,

"Using open source software is *always* practical.  You are practical 
because you are using an open source solution."  which doesn't strike me 
as an overly strong or compelling argument to someone unfamiliar with 
open source or who who has found their existing open source solutions to 
be far from mature and thus impractical.

I am not being "practical" if it takes me 20 minutes to schedule a 30 
minute meeting because I've "chosen" to use an open source calendaring 
"solution".

Is there a better way to understand what you are advocating?

John